Last month, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry was in the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania. Working with a foundation called Nothing But Nets, he was hanging nets over beds in mud huts to protect the refugees from the mosquito bites that can spread malaria.

"Malaria is most likely to go after the most vulnerable: kids and older people," Curry said, who returned this week. "In the camp we were in, something like 83 kids had died in 2013. It was just crazy."

Hearing that a professional athlete is involved in a worthwhile charity is not surprising. It's good PR. His agent sets up a fund with a catchy name like Save Our Kids. The superstar shows up at an inner-city school, hands out T-shirts and has a photo op.

Good for them.

"But Stephen was hanging nets in mud huts 8,000 miles away," says Rick Reilly, the ESPN columnist who was on the trip. "What 25-year-old NBA star, after the season of his life, would do that?"

Four months ago, Curry was leading the underdog Warriors in the NBA playoffs. With a national TV audience tuned in, Curry created a highlight reel of dizzying drives to the basket, laser passes and a rainstorm of long, arching three-point shots - each seemingly more improbable and game changing than the one before.

By the time the Warriors were eliminated in the Western Conference Semifinals, Curry - young, gifted, good looking and articulate - had become a breakout national star. Offers for endorsements and public appearances swamped his desk.

Curry went a different way.

The trip to Tanzania certainly wasn't for the adoration. The refugees, most of whom had fled the civil war in Congo, were told the Americans were important, but they had no clue who they were.

Unknown celebrities

"At one point, Rick introduced himself as Barack Obama and me as Michael Jordan," Curry said.

"I may have done that," admitted Reilly, whose column is famously full of one-liners.

And, as Nothing But Nets Director Chris Helfrich says, it might not have mattered.

"Celebrity gets you an audience," says Helfrich. "But you have to follow through. Steph dove right in, winning over the people."

Conditions, as advertised, were horrible. Refugee camps are placed in the least desirable locations, often near swamps, where mosquitoes breed. This was no exception. Roads are mostly unpaved, sanitary conditions are spotty, and clinging red dust covers everything.

That is the setting that allows malaria to kill over 600,000 people a year, mostly children and mostly in Africa, according Nothing But Nets.

Reilly heard from his daughter in 2006 about the problem and that bed nets could dramatically decrease malaria. He wrote a column telling readers that for every $10 they donated, an insecticide-treated net would be sent to Africa. In the first week, more than $100,000 was collected. The current total stands at $46 million.

That includes a large contribution from Curry, who says he got involved when he was in college at Davidson in North Carolina. His friend Bryant Barr started a malaria-prevention charity called Buzz Kill, which Curry supported.

"I've been a part of fundraising for this cause for six years," he said. "I may personally have a relatively short career in the NBA, but a lot of good can come of that platform."

NBA record

This season he committed to donating three bed nets for every three-point shot he made. What he didn't know was that he would set an NBA record for threes: 272. That's 816 nets.

Very nice. But it was making the 24-hour flight to rural Tanzania that pleased his father, Dell, a 16-year NBA veteran.

"His mother and I know he's a good basketball player," Dell said. "But we get more excited about him as a person. How he stops to take the time to talk to people and not make that person feel like he's bothering him. That will go a lot further in life than basketball."

Dell should have seen the Tanzanian all-star game, featuring kids from the camp. Played on a red dirt court with a rickety rim hanging from a wooden backboard, Reilly says it "may have been the worst basketball game I have ever seen in my life."

Not that it mattered with Curry.

"He's running around yelling, "Pick and roll! Set a screen!' He's so into it." Reilly said. "I told him, 'Steph, not only do they not understand basketball, they don't understand English.' "

Finally, as a treat to the 5,000 refugees watching, Curry took the ball, ran over the dirt, flew in the air and dunked.